Does Appearance Matter? A Technology Acceptance Study of Mixed Reality Avatars in Citizen Services

This paper examines citizens’ acceptance of AI-supported mixed reality avatars in municipal services. The aim was to investigate the effects of these avatars’ visual appearance on user acceptance and citizen trust. To this end, two avatar variants were tested on 54 participants in an experiment. One avatar was designed in a comic style, while the other was more realistic. The interaction with both variants was evaluated independently by the test subjects. The results show that mixed reality avatars are generally perceived positively and accepted as a supportive addition in the city hall (d = 1.85). Differences in appearance did not significantly affect trust or acceptance (p = 0.363). Instead, factors such as social norms (ß = 0.421 (comic-style), ß = 0.513 (realistic)) and comprehensibility (ß = 0.439 (comic-style)) proved to be decisive. This study makes an important contribution to closing the research gap at the interface of mixed reality avatars, user acceptance, trust, artificial intelligence, and public administration. It highlights the potential of avatars to increase efficiency in citizen services.